Wednesday, February 22, 2012

From ASU's State Press.

Rep. Tom Forese, R-Gilbert, introduced a bill to the legislature Feb. 7 to address intellectual and religious discrimination of college and university professors.

House Bill 2770 would ensure faculty members cannot be discriminated against by their employers based on religious or political views.

Forese said he decided to write the bill after being approached several times by faculty members of colleges and community colleges.

“Instructors would have a religious or political point of view that was drastically different from that of their colleagues,” he said. “They kept their opinions to themselves for fear of not getting a promotion or not getting tenure.”

Forese said HB 2770 is intended to ensure both liberal and conservative opinions are protected.

“We should foster discussion and we should foster difference of opinion in higher institutions of learning,” he said. “I think it’s more important to appreciate the best in everyone rather than pinning someone in a corner.”

2 comments:

This is a right-wing response to the fact that several people have failed to get tenure after being revealed as young-earth creationists in a science department, or similar issues. In other words, people who are incapable or unwilling to teach science, and who cannot get their papers published in reputable journals because they are, quite simple, not very good.

There are other examples (crazy conservative or religious viewpoints) but basically it amounts to "you don't have the right to criticize our ideas".

Denying tenure to a young Earther evolutionary biology prof can be easily justified since the candidate would probably have a thin publication and funding record and may not teach the required curriculum.

Conservatives are annoyed that liberals have a majority, overwhelming in some fields, which allows them to set the agenda of intellectual debate. This is akin to conservatives' domination of talk radio which appeals to working class white men. Some are simply scheming to erode liberals' power over American culture.

Others really feel like higher education in the liberal arts is no longer doing what it should: creating and disseminating the knowledge that made Western civilization great. New liberal arts departments going by the name [insert aggrieved group identity here] Studies can promote knowledge as well as activism. Conservatives do not feel welcome in such departments, with good reason.

My point is that such legislation is pushed as both a raw partisan political operations and an effort to improve the quality of higher education.

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Our parent site, Rate Your Students, started in 2005, and we continued that mission beginning in 2010. Ben at Academic Water Torture and Kimmie at The Apoplectic Mizery Maker both ran support blogs during periods when this blog had died.